Crowdsource Your Strategy

Crowdsourcing your strategy may sound crazy. But a few pioneering companies are starting to do just that, boosting organizational alignment in the process. Should you join them?

The problemStrategy setting sometimes suffers from insufficient diversity and expertise, with leaders far removed from the implications of their decisions and hampered by experience-based biases.

Why it mattersStrategies developed by leaders in isolation can be flawed and sometimes aren’t embraced by the people who must implement them. Such misalignment can compromise organizational health and financial performance.

What to do about itPull in overlooked frontline perspectives through the use of social technologies such as wikis and internal idea markets. Work overtime to bring on board executives and middle managers. Transparency, radical inclusion, and peer review are powerful tools but can be uncomfortable for leaders up and down the line.